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The first night I walked in and there were two women in their beds sleeping. No drams.

The next day I went up to be induced and by the time I had my emergency c section and got back to the room the room was empty.

The next night a girl came in who had just and her baby. She was lovely, we got on well and kept an eye on each others bubs whilst we showered or went to the toilet. I don't recall either baby being annoying..so my story is a happy one. I have fond memories of my hospital stay.

I was in for 10 days and shared with two women (double room, so only 1 at a time). The first was terrible, she talked on her phone till 2 am and complained about my DD crying to whoever she was talking too (other than that it was essentially the same conversation over and over again with her whole family, and it got old very quickly).
The second lady was lovely and quiet, lots of visitors but they were respectful of my space and left early.
The last few days I was alone since they had the space and I was getting upset about being confined so long (I just wanted to go home ).

I went public, had a shared room, going private next time! It was pretty awful. As pp have said, you need to take everything into the bathroom with you. You also have to be mindful of the fact that someone (probably with swollen pelvic floor muscles!) may need the toilet while you're in there. There was nowhere to put dirty towels in my shared bathroom. Bloodied towels on the floor absolutely grossed me out.

The secon night of my stay the girl next to me had visitors constantly. They would have the most inappropriate conversations and were terribly loud. It all lead to a pretty stressful experience with zero rest and being desperate to go home!

Wow. So if you were to have another bub would you prefer the public of private system?

My 2 x private births were absolutely amazing.
Could not fault the care and the whole experience.
Didn't even compare to my 3x public births (one a medically induced labour at 16 weeks) which, despite having my own room, had no where near the same feeling of care and comfort.

I've gone public both times (and will for this munchkin). DS1 I shared a room with one other, both our babes were quiet and was (for hospital) a pleasant enough experience. With ds2 it was a full room and I'm quite sure the whole floor was pretty full-the midwives were understaffed poor things. I felt awful for the other 3 ladies in my room because I was unable to tend to DS2 until a midwife would answer my buzzer (which was ages sometimes). There was also a lady (with her second) who let her baby scream and scream she said to the midwives she didn't know what to do with him so left him to cry in his bassinet. Between the two of us I'm pretty sure no one got much sleep, eep. Hoping this time is more like my first!

I only had one night in a shared room, it was awful. Both babies screamed all night long and I was so ill - that probably didn't help - they ended up moving me to a separate room the next morning because I was too unwell. The only good thing about having a rough birth...

DD1 I got a private room as she was in NICU and the hospital was pretty sympathetic to that.

DD2 I had to share with 1 other woman and it was pretty awful at night. My DD was a dream newborn, slept 8 hours overnight from birth - 6 months, never cried. Pretty much fed and slept. The midwife got cross at me for letting her sleep so long and actually made me wake her for a feed which frustrated me.

The poor woman next to me though, her baby was so unsettled it literally cried all night. My sleep was so broken from her and her baby I could hardly function. At one point in the middle of the night she asked a midwife to take the baby because she was loosing it and the midwife said she was too busy and asked if she could call someone to come in, like her husband or mother. She then cried to the midwife that her husband was at home with their toddler and her mum was a shift worker but the nurse didn't care and left her to it. I had to listen to her and her baby cry for ages. I felt so terrible for her, I almost offered to try and comfort her baby but I wasn't sure what kind of reaction I'd get and I was pretty tired myself. After 2 nights I was more than ready to come home!

I loved it during the day though. It was private enough with the curtain up and sharing a bathroom with 1 other person wasn't too bad.

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